Where does the exe need to be to run?

[noahmbright]

Hi everyone,

I'm setting up lsp for nvim and trying not use any plugins. I cloned the repo and was able to run from the bin directory after running the make script. That was all really easy.

But then, to get exe in my path, I tried copying bin/lua-language-server to my /usr/local/bin directory, and when I tried to run it, I got an error cannot open (bootstrap.lua): No such file or directory. Things work if I target the build directory, though.

This is the first lua project I've tried building from source, so I'm not sure how people typically organize them. I'm really curious about where people usually put the repo and what they add to their paths. Whatever feedback would be really helpful.

[tomlau10]

I tried copying bin/lua-language-server to my /usr/local/bin directory

I think you should use symlink instead of copying the executable to /usr/local/bin.
ref: https://askubuntu.com/a/1304250
lua-language-server depends on the scripts/ (lua script) to run, if you just copy the executable it won't work.

---

Here is the installation guide from luals's official new wiki page which you might found useful as well 😄
https://luals.github.io/#neovim-install

[noahmbright]

Got it, that all makes sense - thanks a lot. I was able to symlink with /usr/local/bin/lua-language-server and that worked perfectly. Those installation instructions you sent were helpful, I just got a bit stuck on where to put the .exe so it runs from the command line.

I'm used to building C/C++ projects and just running make install, so I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here. Are there any best/common practices or examples for where to put the installation?

[tomlau10]

I can't give you much idea, as I usually will avoid building projects myself. It's too troublesome, and I prefer to just use package managers to install software or at least use some prebuilt package. It's much easier to update it later as well. 😂

---

Anyway just googling build from source best practice gives the following as the top result:
http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/building-source.html
Seems it suggests to put everything into /source 🤔